I won't lie, sending people to conferences was a difficult one for me at first.
Not like I wanted to go instead or anything (I'd rather do business over Google Meet any day) but just because everything I know is about ROI.
I love building systems, and all my knowledge is around doing that for B2B SaaS Startups.
I've built my business and life around the fact I can look at a business, and instantly know what they need to build a system where they can put a dollar in and take 7 out (sometimes 1:30 when the algorithm is hitting just right)
I love quantifiable things. Ads, e-mail, demo bookings, signup tracking, attribution, etc. I'll happily spend weeks of my life altering small details to turn a 30% bounce rate into a 26%.
But conferences and events? It kinda defies all of that.
Sure, you can try and run it like a funnel (I did at first).
I setup a whole system to sync a rep's iCloud contacts into our CRM, and a business card scanner app to do the same, assign it to the rep, then run it all through Floqer to fill in all the details on phone number, linkedin profile, work emails, company, Job title, pile it back in the CRM, and then place it into fully synced Linkedin, Email & Whatsapp outreach campaigns with personalisation details based on the rep, event, time of day, their business and role, etc.
And sure my brain loves watching all the clean data go in, and it gets meetings, and those meetings get deals.
But truthfully? ROI doesn't match what we know we can get from Paid Social or Search or Linkedin Outreach or Cold email. Not even close.
So why do I still do it?
Because in a business like ours, with a niche like we have, there is such thing as unquantifiable value.
Yea we know we can just get more clients anytime with a well placed ad campaign from the internal team, but it's worth more than the deal value.
The things we gain from watching business get done a different way? From getting reps to spend time with knowledgeable people outside our completely digital bubble? From seeing what centralised banks and international institutions are interested in (which is often different than the things we talk about in digital circles)?
That value is immeasurable.
And I think that lesson carries over for me to many parts of our business.
I'm a marketing tech and numbers guy. I'm always going to be that way.
But reminding myself that some things are good, even if they can't be attributed? I think that makes me a more well rounded person in general.
24 Fintech was worth it because of what we learned from the people, not the numbers. All the events we go to are. It provides knowledge and skills and foresight that you can't buy in other ways, that I hope to use on all projects we do (and we're working on some really, really cool ones. There's a De-Fi project we're part of that I'm itching for approval to start screaming about in the coming months).
Always think about intangible benefits, you learn so much.
Another great event at 24 Fintech in Saudi Arabia!
Amazing to see the new things in Financial technology that will be coming in the next few years.
Plus a member of our team got to see Ronnie O'Sullivan play a match in the evening, so, double win?
#24fintech #fintech #saudiarabia #saudi
